Fighting in the Oberwart district in 1945

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Fighting in the Oberwart district in 1945
date March 29 to May 8, 1945
place Oberwart district
output soviet victory
Parties to the conflict

Soviet Union 1923Soviet Union Soviet Union

German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) German Empire

Commander

Soviet Union 1923Soviet Union Lieutenant General Nikolai Gagen (26th Army)

German Reich NSGerman Reich (Nazi era) Gen.d.Pz.Tr. Hermann Breith (III Panzer Corps)

Troop strength
80,000 10,000
losses

1,000 to 1,500

under 1,000; 108 civilians

Major military operations during the German-Soviet War

1941: Białystok-Minsk  - Dubno-Lutsk-Rivne  - Smolensk  - Uman  - Kiev  - Odessa  - Leningrad blockade  - Vyazma-Bryansk  - Kharkov  - Rostov  - Moscow  - Tula
1942: Rzhev  - Kharkiv  - Company Blue  - companies Braunschweig  - company Edelweiss  - Stalingrad  - Operation Mars
1943: Voronezh-Kharkov  - Operation Iskra  - North Caucasus  - Kharkov  - Citadel Company  - Oryol  - Donets-Mius  - Donbass  - Belgorod-Kharkov  - Smolensk  - Dnepr
1944: Dnepr-Carpathians  - Leningrad-Novgorod  - Crimea  - Vyborg-Petrozavodsk  - Operation Bagration  - Lviv-Sandomierz  - Jassy-Kishinew  - Belgrade  - Petsamo-Kirkenes  - Baltic States  - Carpathians  - Hungary
1945: Courland  - Vistula-Oder  - East Prussia  - West Carpathians  - Lower Silesia  - East Pomerania  - Lake Balaton  - Upper Silesia  - Vienna  - Oder  -  Berlin  - Prague

The fighting in the Oberwart district in 1945 was in the final phase of World War II, the conflict between the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS and the Red Army over the Austrian district of Oberwart .

prehistory

Operation “ Spring Awakening ” began on March 6, 1945 at the northeast end of Lake Balaton . It represented the last major offensive of the Wehrmacht in World War II. The main attack was led by the 6th Panzer Army , which was only poorly replenished after the unsuccessful Ardennes offensive . Behind the rear of the armored divisions of the Waffen-SS advancing to the southeast, the Red Army subsequently assembled numerous infantry and tank units in order to take the offensive itself. The goal of this " Vienna Operation " project was the former Austrian capital Vienna .

After days of fighting, the Soviet troops managed to split up the front between the 6th Panzer Army and the 6th Army and tear a huge hole in the German defensive position. The divisions deployed in the “Spring Awakening” operation were only barely able to escape the encirclement and some of them retreated in a hurry towards the northwest to Vienna. The withdrawal of the 6th Army was aimed at the area of southern Burgenland . A defensive position was built along the former border between Burgenland and Hungary , which National Socialist propaganda called the southeast wall . However, since the gap that had arisen between the two retreating German armies could never be properly closed and the military value of the defensive position was very questionable, the rapid units of the 3rd Ukrainian Front (4th and 9th Guard Army as well as the 6 Guards Armored Army) can be pierced without any problems. The hole in the German front extended from the southern end of Lake Neusiedl to Rechnitz , a village in the northeast corner of the Oberwart district. So it was not surprising that the first Soviet soldier set foot on Austrian soil at noon near Klostermarienberg ( Oberpullendorf district ) on March 29th . He should be on the IX. Guards Mechanized Corps of the 6th Guards Armored Army, which was the spearhead of the 3rd Ukrainian Front in the attack on Vienna.

The Oberwart district was at the southern end of this break-in area and was only grazed in the northeast by the main Soviet forces. The 26th Army, planned for the conquest of the administrative district, followed the armies of the guards, staggered backwards to the left, and only reached German territory on April 4th.

Deployed troop units

German troop units

6th Army , Commander in Chief General of the Panzer Force Hermann Balck

Commanding authority of all units deployed in the district:

III. Panzer Corps , Commanding General : General of the Panzer Force Hermann Breith

Structure of the III Panzer Corps:

The following Volkssturm units were deployed in the district:

Soviet troop units

  • Higher command authorities:

3rd Ukrainian Front , Commander-in-Chief Marshal Fyodor Ivanovich Tolbuchin

Fighting around Rechnitz at the end of March: Parts of the 9th Guard Army: Commander in Chief Colonel General Vasily Vasilyevich Glagolew

Structure of the forces involved in the 9th Guard Army :

  • XXXVII. (37th) Guards Rifle Corps (Commander: Colonel General Pawel Wassiljewitsch Mironow)
    • 98th Guards Rifle Division
    • 99th Guards Rifle Division
    • 103rd Guards Rifle Division

The 26th Army bore the brunt of the fighting: Commander-in-Chief Lieutenant General Nikolai Gagen

Structure of the 26th Army :

  • CXXXV. (135th) Rifle Corps (Commander: Major General Pyotr Wissarionowitsch Gnedin)
    • 74th Rifle Division
    • 151st Rifle Division
    • 155th Rifle Division
  • XXX. (30.) Rifle Corps (Commander: Major General Grigori Semenowitsch Laz'ko)
    • 74th Guards Rifle Division
    • 36th Guards Rifle Division
    • 68th Guards Rifle Division
  • CIV. (104th) Rifle Corps (Commander: Lieutenant General Alexander Wassiljewitsch Petruschewski)
    • 93rd Rifle Division
    • 233rd Rifle Division
    • 66th Guards Rifle Division
  • from April 12th: 5th Guards Cavalry Corps (Commander: Major General Sergei Ilyich Gorshkov )
    • 11th Guards Cavalry Division
    • 12th Guards Cavalry Division
    • 63rd Cavalry Division
    • Panzer Regiment 57
    • 60th Panzer Regiment
    • 71st Panzer Regiment
    • Guard Armored Regiment 150
    • Assault Gun Regiment 1896

From mid-April parts of the 27th Army: Commander-in-Chief, Colonel-General Sergei Georgievich Trofimenko

Structure of the deployed parts of the 27th Army :

  • XXXIII. (33rd) Rifle Corps (Commander: Major General Alexei Ivanovich Semenov)
    • 206th Rifle Division
    • 337th Rifle Division
    • 3rd Airborne Guard Division

course

First fights and massacres of Hungarian forced laborers

The first larger town in the Oberwart district to be captured by the Red Army in 1945 was Rechnitz . Because only a few kilometers north of this community, the majority of the rapid units of the 3rd Ukrainian Front advanced in the direction of Vienna. On the left flank of the attack wedge marched the 9th Guard Army and part of this army, the XXXVII. Guard Rifle Corps, crossed the border on the evening of March 29th and captured the village by the morning of March 30th. At that time there were only three Volkssturm battalions facing the Soviet troops as German forces. The A-line of the Reichsschutzstellung, which was still on Hungarian soil, was occupied by the Oberwart Volkssturm Battalion from Geschrittenstein to the Oberwart-Steinamanger railway line. The Volkssturm battalion Bruck ad Mur joined this unit to the south. The Volkssturm Battalion Leoben was distributed as a reserve unit along the entire length of the B line of the southeast wall. Some anti-aircraft troops in the hinterland should provide the necessary support. For the elite soldiers of the 9th Guard Army, however, the defenders were not a serious obstacle. Even countermeasures by the section commander, Captain Osterroth, could not regain the lost terrain.

Kreuzstadl Rechnitz memorial

In the village itself there had been a massacre a few days earlier (on the night of March 24th to 25th) after a party in the Rechnitz Castle , in which around 200 Hungarian slave laborers had fallen victim. The mass grave with their corpses has not been found until today, a memorial at the so-called Kreuzstadl commemorates their fate .

Almost simultaneously with the arrival of the first Soviet soldiers in the northeast corner of the district, a second massacre of Jewish slave labor took place 20 kilometers further south . The scene was the municipality of Deutsch Schützen , which had not yet been conquered by the Red Army due to the lag of the 26th Army. In contrast to the Rechnitz massacre, the dead were found 40 years later and buried in a dignified manner.

Martinskirche in German Schützen with memorial plaque

Reinforcements arrive and Rechnitz is retaken

During March 30th, Lieutenant General Walter Krause, a senior officer, arrived in the combat area. He was the commander of the rear army area ("Korück") of the 6th Army withdrawing from Hungary. As the first combat units he brought with him two infantry units of a people's throwing brigade, which were directly subordinate to the army. These soldiers occupied the B-line of the southeast wall in the east of Schachendorf , but they had to withdraw from the place during the day because they could not withstand the attack pressure of the Soviet troops from the east.

In the meantime, the commander of military district XVIII, General of the Mountain Forces, Julius Ringel, had more than 1,500 reinforcements deployed to the threatened area. By March 31, 2:00 a.m., the SS Panzer Grenadier Training and Replacement Battalion 11, the Mountain Infantry Replacement and Training Battalion 138, a mountain veterinary replacement company and a cavalry replacement squadron had reached the Großpetersdorf area . All the troops in the combat area were grouped under the command of Lieutenant General Walter Krause to form the "Krause Division Group". The III. Panzer Corps set up its command post in Kemeten in the meantime .

It almost seemed that the division group should get a substantial reinforcement with the addition of the Mountain Infantry Regiment 99 of the 1st Mountain Division, but this regiment was then in the southeast corner of the district, to St. Kathrein in Burgenland, a district of German Rifles , ordered to occupy the Reich protection position there.

On March 31, the counterattack of these new formations started. As the southern group, the Gebirgsjäger Replacement and Training Battalion 138 and the Mountain Veterinary Replacement Company recaptured part of Schachendorf, but Soviet counter-attacks with tanks forced the village to be abandoned. The attack of the northern group, the SS Panzergrenadier Training and Replacement Battalion 11 and the cavalry replacement squadron, could not take place that day because there were delays in the deployment.

The attack therefore only took place on April 1st and, due to the element of surprise, it was a complete success. The SS battalion, made up of 16- and 17-year-old Dutch volunteers, stood ready in the forest area northwest of Rechnitz and attacked the completely surprised Soviet troops at around 11 a.m. They even fled the village and the Dutch unit advanced to the Reichsschutzstellung. A connection with the southern group of forces could not be established. The battalion commander SS-Sturmbannführer Willi Schweitzer was awarded the Knight's Cross for this success , but there is no confirmation for this in the relevant specialist literature.

The young Dutch volunteers found a disturbed population in the village who had suffered rape of women and girls and looting . On April 3, another attempt was made to establish the connection to the south. However, this project had to be canceled after high losses due to a Soviet counterattack.

The major attack by the 26th Army

The conquest of the northern half of the district

After smaller units of the approaching 26th Army had already intervened in local fighting in the days before, their deployment in front of the state border was completed on April 4th. The next day at 8 a.m., rifle divisions of the 26th Army started a major attack on the Oberwart district. The XXX. The rifle corps attacked the units of the Krause division group, which had already been weakened by the previous fighting, and achieved an operational breakthrough around noon. Großpetersdorf and the suburb of Oberwart fell on the same day. The Krause division group had to relocate its command post first to Rotenturm and then on to Oberdorf on April 5th . To the north of Oberwart, in the south and east of the village of Riedlingsdorf , further defensive structures such as an anti-tank ditch and machine gun positions were prepared. However, there were no soldiers to occupy these facilities, so that there was no fighting and the town was spared major destruction. The XXX rifle corps reached Pinkafeld in the evening hours of April 5th without a fight. The northern half of the Oberwart district was captured by the Red Army in less than 24 hours. The advance of the Soviet units initially continued to the northwest, so on April 6th Friedberg was taken. Only then did some of the Soviet units turn to the west in order to outflank the 6th Army and threaten it on its deep flank.

Of the decimated units of the Krause division group, only a few combat-capable survivors were able to save themselves. Sometimes soldiers tried to get through to the German lines individually or in small groups, some succeeded, others were captured by the Soviet troops or lost their lives on the way. In the meantime, this line of defense had been poorly formed in the Lafnitz part. Lieutenant General Walter Krause had been sent from the south to three battalions of the 1st Mountain Division, which could form a catchment position along the Lafnitz , which reached as far as Neustift . This line could essentially be held until the surrender on May 8th, while further to the north the Soviet units were able to advance deep into the Eastern Styrian hinterland.

The withdrawal of the SS Panzer Grenadier Replacement and Training Battalion 11

View of the Pinkatal north of Oberwart in the direction of Unterschützen. Here the SS battalion (blue) crossed the valley and was attacked in the flank (red).

The largest German force group that tried to reach the makeshift German reception positions along the former Styrian border was the SS Panzer Grenadier Replacement and Training Battalion 11 deployed in Rechnitz. The attack by the 26th Army made it in Rechnitz cut off from the rest of the German troops. SS-Sturmbannführer Willi Schweitzer therefore ordered the breakout of his remaining battalion. The vast forest areas of the Günser Mountains were used. The route led the mostly Dutch SS soldiers over the Hirschenstein , Glashütten, past Schlaining and Alt-Schlaining to Unterützen . There it came to a battle with supply units of the Red Army. Next it was necessary to cross the Pinkatal, which is 2 kilometers wide, north of Oberwart, heading west. Fired from three sides - among other things, a flank attack from Oberwart had to be fought off - it was possible to reach the forest areas around Buchschachen after enemy anti- tank positions had to be overcome. On the morning of April 8, the severely decimated units reached their own lines in the Lafnitz valley. Surviving battalion members reported that in the days after the breakthrough, only 150 unharmed men showed up at a collection point in Grafendorf in Styria . In Buchschachen in the reed 'Taborschluchten' there is a memorial stone that commemorates 21 dead SS members who were recovered from various field graves after the war and reburied there. In the 1960s, they were reburied in the Mattersburg collective cemetery, where they found their final resting place.

The fighting in the southern half of the district

To the south of the Krause division group, individual units of the 1st Mountain Division held the German front line. The following units were deployed from north to south within the district boundaries:

  • Reconnaissance Department 54 the area north of the Eisenberg
  • Field Replacement Battalion 75, a unit assigned to the 3rd Panzer Division , Eisenberg area
  • Mountain Pioneer Battalion 54 the area between Eisenberg and Deutsch Schützen
  • Gebirgsjäger-Regiment 99 the area south of Deutsch Schützen

The 99 Mountain Infantry Regiment was originally intended as reinforcement for the Krause division group in the north, but was then initially needed in the Reich Defense Force. Individual smaller skirmishes with the first advancing units of the 26th Army led the division to withdraw from the villages of Eisenberg and Deutsch Schützen on April 1st. Only when the large Soviet attack in the north of the district became apparent, parts of the Mountain Infantry Regiment 99 were detached starting April 4th and deployed on April 5th and 6th in the line Kotezicken - Großpetersdorf - Oberwart to protect the left flank of the mountain division . The 1st Battalion of the 98 Mountain Infantry Regiment was also relocated to the north in the course of April 5 and fought retreats with units of the Red Army near Kemeten.

The inner courtyard of Kohfid Castle, 1945 scene of hand-to-hand fighting

There were also fights by units of the Mountain Infantry Battalion 99 on April 5 at Kleinpetersdorf and Kotezicken. The fighting was particularly intense in and around Kohfidisch . On April 6, the first Soviet units managed to break into the town. In a counter-attack, the broken-in members of the Red Army were thrown out of the village again. The Kohfid castle was also the scene of close combat. On April 7, the mountain troops even undertook a counterattack, which resulted in the vineyards of the Csaterberg being drawn into the front. In this attack 220 Red Army soldiers were counted dead. But the German losses also increased in the next few days because the Red Army with superior forces of the 155th Rifle Division and other units of the CXXXV. Rifle Corps tried to regain lost ground.

On the night of April 11th to April 12th, the 1st Mountain Division finally cleared the positions in the southeast corner of the Oberwart district. The order was to withdraw about 15 to 20 kilometers to the west on the Lafnitz performance . Since the district border between Oberwart and Güssing runs in a north-westerly direction, the new positions were in the former Güssing district (the Güssing district did not exist as an administrative unit during the Third Reich). Thus, from April 12th, around 90 percent of the Oberwart district was in the hands of the Red Army. Only in the area of Markt Allhau was there still fighting on Burgenland soil for the next two days, while for the rest of the war there were 'only' more artillery and fire fights between the German defenders dug into the Styrian border and the attacking Red Army soldiers.

Fight in the west of the district near Markt Allhau and Buchschachen

While the main thrust of the 26th Army aimed to the northwest, smaller units of the Red Army tried to reach the Lafnitz valley north of Oberwart. Lieutenant General Krause, with the remnants of his division group and three battalions from the 1st Mountain Division, opposed the Soviet intentions. In the period from April 6th to 8th, fierce fighting broke out near Buchschachen, today a district of Markt Allhau. After two days the German troops left behind the Lafnitz , but held their position there until the end of the war.

A few kilometers further south in Markt Allhau, the fighting continued until April 14th, before the German troops there too withdrew behind the border river. As of April 12, the mountain troops deployed were returned to their main division, which was subsequently responsible for the defensive section on the Lafnitz. Lieutenant General Krause was detached with his staff to take over combat groups in Joglland that opposed the Soviet forces advancing there.

The battles in Markt Allhau, along with those in Rechnitz / Schachendorf and Kohfidisch / Csaterberg, represented the third focus of the fighting within the district boundaries and were the ones that lasted the longest. On April 28, the village was even evacuated and the residents had to move to Oberwart, Unterschützen, Goberling and Großpetersdorf.

consequences

Military consequences

The military consequences of the fighting in the Oberwart district for the Wehrmacht, especially for the 6th Army, were that their left wing was not only hanging in the air, but also from April 7th due to a reconnaissance by the XXX. Rifle corps in the direction of St. Jakob was threatened in its deep flank. The alarm units deployed in Eastern Styria were only able to push back individual Soviet units with the help of parts of the 1st Panzer Division coming from the south .

The situation developed particularly dramatically from April 13, when the 26th Army reinforced this flank thrust with the newly assigned 5th Guards Cavalry Corps. The German defenders had nothing of equal value to oppose the three cavalry divisions and the four tank regiments of the Guard Corps. In a few days, the Soviet troops captured the villages of Miesenbach , Strallegg , Fischbach and Ratten, among others .

The situation became so threatening that a large-scale counter-offensive began on April 16. For this purpose, parts of the 1st Mountain Division, the 1st Panzer Division, the 9th Mountain Division newly formed on Semmering and the 117th Jäger Division were used. The fact that this Jägerdivision was available was a stroke of luck because it was withdrawn from Army Group E from the Balkans , where it had played an inglorious role in "Operation Kalavrita" in 1943 . At Mürzzuschlag the soldiers were taken from the transport trains and sent into battle via Krieglach . As a result of this concentric attack by several divisions, the Guard Cavalry Corps suffered such severe losses by April 23 that it had to largely withdraw from the Styrian towns.

The front now came to rest. Also because the Red Army has carried out massive regroupings to the north since April 23. Units of the 26th Army were relocated to Lower Austria and replaced by troops from the 27th Army, which followed in the south and had a purely defensive mission. As a result, there was relative calm in the fighting area and in the Burgenland stage of the Oberwart district until the surrender on May 8, 1945.

Consequences for the civilian population

The invasion of the Red Army was a traumatic experience for many residents of the district. Women and girls in particular suffered from rapes by Soviet soldiers. How many were killed in the process is not documented. With 108 civilians dead, many of whom were killed in direct acts of war, it should be a relatively low double-digit number. A second evil was the looting, which is also a typical side effect of an armed conflict.

Damage to the infrastructure occurred mainly in those places (e.g. Markt Allhau and Rechnitz) where there was prolonged fighting. The quick, almost without a fight, conquest of half the district represented luck in disaster for the affected villages, because the lack of fighting resulted in relatively little damage to buildings, with the exception of the aforementioned. What villages looked like after four weeks of fighting could be seen from the East Styrian towns that were affected by the flank thrust of the 26th Army.

The Oberwart district belonged to the Soviet rear from the second week of April 1945. In addition to the unpleasant excesses, the other side of the Russian soul soon appeared . The Soviet soldiers turned out to be particularly fond of children. There were small gifts for children (sometimes looted goods too, of course) and many were fed by the Soviet field kitchens. The group of eight to fourteen year old boys in particular often had little fear of contact with the new occupiers. For these children, the war was at times an adventure. The older of them had already been prepared for military service in the German Jungvolk or the Hitler Youth . They were therefore not afraid of weapons and since war material was lying around everywhere, accidents while handling firearms, drilling open ammunition or attempting to explode were the logical consequences.

Consequences for the Dutch volunteers

Many of the young Dutch volunteers from SS Panzergrenadier Training and Replacement Battalion 11 who survived the war and Soviet captivity were tried in their home country after the war. During these investigations it turned out that not all had "voluntarily" entered the Waffen SS. At least in one case, it is documented that a youngster after his arrest by the Secret State Police was given the choice of either joining the Dutch volunteer organizations of the Waffen SS or carrying out one-man torpedo missions in the Navy . A broader scholarly treatment of this topic is still pending, because the archives in which these fates are documented are subject to a blocking period until 2027 and are therefore only accessible under special conditions.

losses

Civilian population and armed forces

Determining the exact number of dead in the fighting in the Oberwart district is a little difficult because there are sometimes contradicting sources of information. The example of the fallen German soldiers found in the municipality of Riedlingsdorf shows the difficulties that arise in determining the exact numbers. Depending on the source, their number is given as 12 (municipality report), 13 (report by the Austrian Black Cross ) and 14 (author Leopold Banny).

Official sources put the total number of civilian deaths during fighting across the district at 108.

Memorial stone for 21 fallen soldiers of the SS battalion in the 'Taborschluchten' vineyard near Buchschachen

Former members of the SS Panzer Grenadier Replacement and Training Battalion put the number of deaths at 300 to 400, 21 of which can be clearly located in Buchschachen (Ried 'Taborschluchten'). In official sources, the total number of soldiers killed on both sides at Rechnitz is given as 300. From this point of view, the number of SS soldiers killed appears to be too high.

The following overview shows an incomplete list of the losses in the district per municipality (civilian victims and German military as well as destroyed houses):

local community conquered on civilian victims German military destroy Houses
Bad Tatzmannsdorf April 5th ? ? ?
Badersdorf ? ? ? ?
Amber ? ? ? ?
Book boxes 9th April ? 42 > 20
German Schützen-Eisenberg March 31 ? ? ?
Grafenschachen April 6th ? ? ?
Großpetersdorf April 5th ? ? ?
Hannersdorf April 5th ? ? ?
Hannersdorf April 5th ? ? ?
Jabing April 5th ? ? ?
Kemeten ? ? ? ?
Kohfid 12. April ? ? ?
Litzelsdorf ? ? ? ?
Loipersdorf Kitzladen ? ? ? ?
Mariasdorf ? ? ? ?
Allhau market April 14th 5 46 47 (+173)
Neuhodis market ? ? ? ?
Mischendorf ? ? ? ?
Neustift an der Lafnitz ? ? ? ?
Oberdorf ? ? ? ?
Top riflemen ? ? ? ?
Oberwart April 5th at least 4 ? at least 5
Pinkafeld 5.4. ? ? ?
Rechnitz March 30th, April 5th 26th > 100? 22nd
Riedlingsdorf April 5th 2 13 1
Rotenturm ? ? ? ?
Chess village April 31 ? ? ?
Schandorf ? ? ? ?
City of Schlaining ? ? ? ?
Unterkohlstätten ? ? ? ?
Unterwart ? ? ? ?
Weiden near Rechnitz ? ? ? ?
Wiesfleck ? ? ? ?
Wolfau ? ? ? ?

In Burgenland, all local German war cemeteries were closed in the 1960s and the bones of the fallen were reburied in Mattersburg. Today 2575 dead from the Second World War rest in the military cemetery, which is looked after by the Ministry of the Interior .

  • Entrance area of ​​the Mattersburg military cemetery

  • View of the Hochkreuz

Soviet military cemeteries

The losses of the Red Army cannot be clearly determined either. Although there are some cemeteries in the district of which the occupancy is known, after the front moved to Styria on April 14, 1945, wounded Soviet soldiers were repeatedly taken to the current stage , where some of them succumbed to their injuries. Thus, the exact number of victims of the Soviet soldiers who died directly in the fighting in the Oberwart district cannot be clearly determined.

A total of 1,418 members of the Red Army are buried in the following seven Soviet military cemeteries in the Oberwart district:

  • Bad Tatzmannsdorf (28 dead)
  • Book Trays (64)
  • Grosspetersdorf (371)
  • Loipersdorf (32)
  • Neustift an der Lafnitz (21)
  • Oberwart (819)
  • Upper rifle (83)

  • Entrance gate of the Soviet military cemetery in Oberwart

  • Group of tombstones in the Oberwart cemetery

  • Soviet military cemetery Oberschützen

  • Soviet military cemetery Oberschützen

  • Soviet military cemetery Loipersdorf

  • Loipersdorf - 67 years after his death, the grave of this Soviet soldier was visited by his brothers.

  • Deputies of the Burgenland Comradeship Association at the burial of soldiers of the Red Army .

  • Burial of coffins in the Soviet military cemetery in Oberwart on June 24, 2016.

  • Representatives of the Burgenland Comradeship Association at the burial of the coffins of exhumed Soviet soldiers.

  • The President of the Burgenland Comradeship Association Colonel Ernst Feldner laying the wreath in Oberwart on June 24, 2016.

  • Deputies of the Burgenland Comradeship Association at the wreath-laying ceremony by the Jäger Battalion 19 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k Manfried Rauchsteiner : The War in Austria 1945 , Österr. Bundesverlag, Vienna 1984, ISBN 3-215-01672-9 .
  2. ↑ Hugo Portisch, 'Austria II', Volume 1
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Friedrich Brettner, The last fights of the Second World War, Pinka-Lafnitz-Hochwechsel, 1743 m
  4. ^ Gerhard von Seemen, 'Die Ritterkreuzträger 1939 bis 1945', ISBN 3-7909-0051-6
  5. ↑ a b c d Riedlingsdorf 1331–1991, commemorative publication for the 660th anniversary, published by the municipality of Riedlingsdorf in 1991
  6. ↑ a b c d e The invasion of the Red Army in Riedlingsdorf 1945 , website accessed on October 25, 2013
  7. ↑ a b c d e f g Markt Allhau - Buchschachen through the ages. Publisher: Marktgemeinde Markt Allhau. ISBN 978-3-200-02107-5
  8. ↑ Nationaal Archief - Netherlands , website www.gahetna.nl, accessed on April 20, 2016
  9. ↑ Evertjan van Roekel: Dutch volunteers in the Waffen-SS , dissertation in 2016
  10. ↑ a b Historischer Atlas Burgenland, publisher: Office of the Burgenland Provincial Government, ISBN 978-3-85405-185-5
  11. ^ Website of the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge - Mattersburg Cemetery , accessed on October 25, 2013

literature

  • Manfried Rauchsteiner : The war in Austria 1945 from: Writings of the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum in Vienna (Military Science Institute), Österr. Bundesverlag, Vienna 1984, ISBN 3-215-01672-9 .
  • Friedrich Brettner : The last battles of the Second World War , Pinka-Lafnitz-Hochwechsel, 1743 m.
  • Markt Allhau - Buchschachen through the ages. Publisher: Marktgemeinde Markt Allhau. ISBN 978-3-200-02107-5 .
  • Historical Atlas Burgenland, publisher: Office of the Burgenland Provincial Government, ISBN 978-3-85405-185-5 .
  • Riedlingsdorf 1331–1991, commemorative publication for the 660th anniversary, published by the municipality of Riedlingsdorf in 1991.